Friday, August 7, 2009

Sql Server 2008 editions

What are the Editions of SQL Server 2008?Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 is available in a number of editions, each suitable for a particular environment or task.It is important to understand the differences between the available editions so that you can select the most appropriate one for your needs.The Developer Edition contains the same functionality as Enterprise Edition, but is restricted, by the license, to testing and development only.Windows Essential Business Server Premium Edition® (which will replace Small Business Server®) comes with a license for SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition®.SQL Server 2008 Web Edition enables hosting companies to provide low cost, highly scalable hosting for developers, SMBs, and consumers, all with a low monthly licensing fee, four CPU support, and no limits on memory and database size for increased scalability.Cross-version instances of SQL Server 2008 are not supported. Version numbers of the Database Engine, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services components must be the same within an instance of SQL Server 2008.Before upgrading SQL Server, enable Windows Authentication for SQL Server Agent and verify that the SQL Server Agent service account is a member of the SQL Server sysadmin group.Before upgrading from one edition of SQL Server 2008 to another, verify that the functionality you are currently using is supported in the edition to which you are upgrading.Cross-platform upgrade is not supported. You cannot upgrade a 32-bit instance of SQL Server to native 64-bit. However, you can upgrade a 32-bit instance of SQL Server to the WOW64: the 32-bit subsystem on a 64-bit server. You can also back up or detach databases from a 32-bit instance of SQL Server, and then restore or attach them to an instance of SQL Server (64-bit) if the databases are not published in replication. In this case, you must also re-create any logins and other user objects in master, msdb, and model system databases.To upgrade to SQL Server 2008, you must be running a supported operating system.The installer will check a number of conditions and block the upgrade if certain conditions are not met:Upgrade will be blocked if there is a pending restart.Upgrade will be blocked if the Windows Installer service is not running.Upgrade will be blocked if performance counters are corrupt.To upgrade an instance of SQL Server to a SQL Server failover cluster, the instance being upgraded must be a failover cluster. To upgrade a stand-alone instance of SQL Server to a SQL Server failover cluster, install a new SQL Server failover cluster and then migrate user databases from the stand-alone instance by using the Copy Database Wizard.